Page 2 of Ravaging Red (Monsters of the Hollow Realm #1)

My thighs clenched as another chill crept up my spine, but it wasn’t from the cold.

It was from the feeling of being watched…

hunted . The thickness in the air pressed down on me with invisible hands.

My heart pounded against my ribs, wanting to escape my chest, but I kept walking.

One wary step after the other. One trembling breath at a time.

Because I didn’t want to be out here when that thing , whatever the hell it was, decided it was done playing hide-and-seek.

And yet… I didn’t want to leave either.

That was the most unsettling part of this whole thing. There was a pull, both raw and magnetic, that tugged at something deep inside me, something dark and needy. It slithered through my veins, settled in my bones, and made my body burn in ways I didn’t fully understand. Yet I didn’t want to leave.

The Hollow Woods weren’t just trees and shadows. They wanted something. He wanted something. And God help me, so did I.

I could feel it. Him. He was out there. Watching and prowling.

Every snap of a branch, every rustle of leaves, every breath of wind brushing my skin felt like his fingers ghosting over me, marking me without touch. I didn’t even know who he was. But I knew he was close.

Too close.

My breath hitched. My nipples tightened beneath my thin top, my skin was hypersensitive, and it felt alive.

With that feeling, came the aching. A strange heat pooled between my legs, and I struggled with the feeling, hating how wet I was just from the idea of him.

A trembling clench seized through my core, and I stumbled to my knees, scrambling to get up and keep going.

The rumors were true. People didn’t just get lost in the Hollow Woods…they were taken .

Claimed.

But something inside me whispered not to run. To let the forest swallow me whole. To let him find me.

Because maybe I wasn’t meant to escape. Maybe I was meant to belong.

To him .

Somewhere behind me, low to the ground, padded steps moved with precision. Not clumsy. Not human. Silent, in the way predators were silent.

I didn’t hear him. Not exactly.

But I felt the way the world bent around his presence. How even the wind changed course to avoid him.

I stopped at a tree trunk, trying to catch my breath, but something else caught my attention. I gripped the wood and traced the sharp slashes carved into its base. The red sap bled beneath my fingertips and suddenly, I knew what I was dealing with.

The Wolf.

Growing up in Hollow’s Creek, I’d heard stories of him .

Of what happened to girls if they heard his call.

Of girls who vanished in these woods, their shoes left behind on blood-smeared trails.

Girls who were never found, but sometimes they whispered warnings in the night.

Girls who dreamed of monsters and never woke up again.

And one of those monsters was the Wolf. It was said that he was seven feet tall, a massive beast who targeted innocent souls.

Some whispered he was hunting for food, others who liked to romanticize him, whispered that he was out finding his true mate.

Either way, blood would always spill if you got too close.

And now it turned out he wasn’t just a fairy tale. He was real . And I could feel in my bones that he was worse than the stories told.

He didn’t just hunt, he played with his prey . And for some reason, he had targeted me .

One breath. One step. That was all it took.

He hadn’t even touched me, hadn’t needed to.

His presence coiled around me, thick and invasive, seeping into my pores, staining my skin with a scent that didn’t belong to me.

It was his . Earth and ash. Blood and something sinfully masculine.

It clung to me, and I realized that his invisible touch had branded me from the inside out, leaving an imprint no one else could see.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to be fucking devoured .

My knees shook, and my lips parted, a soft whimper escaped me before I could stop it, and somehow, I knew he heard it.

Gods help me. I prayed.

Somewhere in the darkness, the trees trembled, followed by a deep, guttural growl…not angry or wild. No, it was worse than that. It sounded… pleased . A dark, feral moan dragged from the chest of something inhuman, something that didn’t just want me.

It owned me.

The sound echoed through the woods and slammed straight between my thighs, vibrating in my core like a live wire. My body answered without permission, hips tilting, thighs clenching, heat flooding my panties until I was soaked through.

I moaned back. A breathy, broken sound that tore from my throat like a deadly promise filled with need.

Mine , the wind whispered again, closer this time. Harsher.

And I believed it. Because no matter how hard I tried to deny it, some twisted, hungry part of me wanted to be hunted. I wanted to be caught, branded, and broken.

I wanted him .

Fear grabbed me by the throat, and my instinct was to run.

I wasn’t thinking, as my legs moved faster than my mind.

I could feel my lungs burning, my heart pounding hard against my ribs.

I had no clue where I was going. No real sense of what I was running from, or worse, what I might be running toward.

The bag at my side thudded against my thigh with each frantic step, the strap digging into my shoulder, the weight a harsh reminder of why I was in these woods in the first place. I had no idea what I was doing. My mother’s warning kept running through my mind:

Stay away from the woods, Red. You have no idea what happens to little girls who don’t listen to their mothers.

I shook away my mother’s warning as I continued to run deeper into the woods. Branches clawed at my cloak, those greedy fingers kept grabbing and ripping at me, trying to hold me back. The scent of moss and damp earth filled my nostrils, enveloping me in this odd comfort, grounding me.

But no matter how fast I went, the path twisted beneath me, slick and unpredictable.

Stones shifted causing my ankles to twist. Roots reared up to trip me.

The Hollow Woods were alive, and they weren’t letting me go.

Every turn led deeper. Every panic-stricken step sank me further into its massive dark hole.

He was hunting me.

I could feel it. It was in the thickness in the air, the way my skin prickled in warning, the way my body tingled with every step. It was as if he already knew every inch of me, inside and out. I was something he’d wanted for a long time.

I stumbled into a clearing, my boots skidding over the slick earth and wet leaves.

My chest heaved, pulling in too much air, as I tried to decide what to do.

The sky above looked like cracked glass between jagged treetops, filtering the moonlight into broken shards that pierced the ground.

The moon above me had turned a bright red and it seeped through the clouds like blood.

I spun wildly. Feeling desperate and alone.

But still, I neither saw nor heard anything. Not a single sound. Not even a whisper of the winds or the flutter of birds.

But I could feel him circling just beyond the trees.

A low, dark pulse thrummed in the dirt beneath me.

It was as if the woods themselves were thrumming out a warning…

or a welcome. The predator didn’t need to be seen.

He lived in this space between fear and longing. And he’d found the perfect crack in me.

I needed to hide, but how? I already knew he had my scent.

Through my haze of panic, I saw it. The cabin.

My Nana’s old hunting lodge. It looked like it had clawed its way out of the earth and decided to rot quietly where it stood.

The porch was crooked, the railing splintered and sagging.

The door hung slightly ajar, groaning on its rusted hinges.

Ivy choked the stone foundation, and moss blanketed the roof like a shroud.

But candlelight flickered inside. It was soft, warm, and oddly inviting.

Hope clawed up my throat, and I swallowed hard as I ran toward the front door. Maybe she was there. Maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe…

I stumbled up the steps, boots slamming against warped wood, my fingers fumbling over the doorframe as I pushed my way in.

The air inside was heavy with warmth and the faint scent of beeswax and dried herbs.

Shadows danced on the walls, long and flickering with menace as they twisted into unnatural shapes.

The candlelight sputtered in a metal holder on the mantle, casting everything in a low, golden glow.

But even before I crossed the threshold, I knew .

Deep in the aching pit of my stomach, where my instincts told me truths I didn’t want to face.

I’d been wrong. My Nana wasn’t here. She hadn’t been here in a long, long time.

The air didn’t carry her scent or her motherly presence.

The silence had not heard her footsteps in a long time.

But he did.

He was here.

Waiting.

His musky scent hit me like a blow. Stronger now. Saturating every surface. Every breath I took felt like him, tasted like him. And then I saw them. The footprints on the dusty floor. Massive, padded, clawed footprints.

I froze.

And in the silence that followed, I felt it settle over me like a collar.

Claimed.

The door behind me creaked, and the last thing I remember was the feel of eyes on my back… and the softest whisper that crept into my loins.

“Welcome to my den, little Red.”